


BeClaws I Love You

by growup_thatbeautiful



Series: The Rusty Vegas Caldwell Chronicles [1]
Category: Ocean's Eleven Trilogy (Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, It’s mainly about the crab, Linus is Cute, M/M, Post-Canon, Rusty Vegas Caldwell The Hermit Crab, They steal stuff, aquarium, they’re all happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:21:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29600991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/growup_thatbeautiful/pseuds/growup_thatbeautiful
Summary: The gang goes to an aquarium, and Linus steals a crab. Further chaos insures.
Relationships: Danny Ocean/Rusty Ryan
Series: The Rusty Vegas Caldwell Chronicles [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2175978
Kudos: 23





	BeClaws I Love You

**Author's Note:**

> 99% of these ideas go to @hivemind gang, this was not done on my own by any means.

“Would you guys like a family pass?” The overly-perky blonde at the front desk of the aquarium asks them, not knowing what she’s going to get into. 

“Yes, thank you.” Rusty’s reply is civil and calm, unlike the rest of them. 

Reuben looks around at the rest of them, appearing to be confused at how he ended up with this random group. “I’ve never met them in my life.” 

Basher grabs Linus and pulls him into his shoulder. “This is my brother, we’re here as a family. I don’t know what I would do without my dustbin lid.” Linus nods solemnly, wearing the bright blue beanie that Basher made for him last year. It has an embroidered poker chip on the front, and Linus has taken it upon himself to add enamel pins. So far he has an ace of spades and white daisy that Reuben gave him because of his favorite book, Great Gatsby and the character Daisy. The woman at the front desk looks a little more than overwhelmed. 

Virgil points to Turk. “This is my twin. He ate our triplet in the womb.”

Not to be outdone, Turk points back to Virgil. “He lost our little sister at a Six Flags on two separate occasions.”

“Does this aquarium have any fish?” Livingston’s questions earns him an odd look from the front desk.

“We’re all thieves and are here to rob you,” deadpans Saul, and the girl, her name tag says Brenda, laughs awkwardly at that. Yen says nothing and just stares at Brenda blankly. It’s terrifying for anyone. 

“I don’t have a family because of my issues with commitment and shitty communication.” 

“Danny, no.” 

“Danny, yes. We’re going to be buying a family pass, thank you.” Danny hands her the cash, which isn’t the most inconspicuous thing to do, but no ones looking for them at the fucking aquarium so it’s all right. 

“Everyone pair up. I’m with Rusty, back the fuck off Reuben. Turk, Virgil, stop fighting over Linus, you’re scaring him. Yen, Saul, wait a second, will ya?” 

Rusty takes over. “Jesus, it’s like herding a bunch of children. So we’ve got Yen and Saul, Reuben, Basher and Linus, Livingston and Virgil, Frank and Turk, and me and Danny”

“I don’t understand why we have to be in groups anyway.” Turk complains from the spot next to Frank. “I don’t want to go to the fish first, I want to see the sharks.” 

“We can’t have anyone getting into obvious trouble. Just try to lay low, don’t draw any attention to yourselves. Do not, and I truly do mean this, let us have a repeat of the zoo. Reuben is still cleaning up for the baby tiger you stole, Linus. And Rusty, no big animals. We don’t need a fox.” 

“You just had to bring this up again? Of course we need a fox.”

“We don’t need a fucking fox.” 

“Everyone needs a fucking fox!”

“We are not doing this again.”

“Fine.”

“So we can’t steal shit?” 

“You have priorities, Yen, and I respect that.”

“That doesn’t mean anything to me. Can we steal shit?”

“Short answer, yes. Longer answer, yes but be careful. We don’t want more people on our asses until the rest of our stuff clears out.” 

“Good. Can we go now?” Basher asks the question, but doesn’t stick around to hear the answer, pulling Reuben and Basher to the stingrays and starfish that you get to touch. 

“Everyone meet at the gift shop in two hours!” No one acknowledges that they hear Rusty call out, but he knows they heard him. They’re not actually going to buy anything at the gift shop. That stuff is too expensive, and they have standards. They’re obviously going to steal whatever they want.

Rusty and Danny go to the glass wall with the huge fish tank behind it. It surrounds the top of them, almost like they’re under the water themselves. They stand next to each other in silence for a few moments, watching as the fish swim by peacefully, content with artificial sunshine and a life behind a screen. Rusty speaks first. 

“You know, as someone deathly afraid of the ocean and vehemently opposed to coming here, this isn’t so bad. It’s…tranquil. Not something I expected in a place that advertised family fun for kids any age. 

“Yeah, well every place has its perks.”

“Except Banks’ casinos.” 

“Those gaudy pieces of crap don’t have a single redeemable quality about them.”

“Easy to rob.” 

“You call what we just did easy?”

“I call it the way I make a living, and I’m not a mindless poor son of a bitch working all day and coming home to say “Honey, I’m home,” so yeah, I would say I’ve got it pretty good.” 

“I hate to pop your bubble-“

“No you don’t.” 

“Accurate. I hate to pop your bubble but you said Honey I’m home to me last week.” 

“I was being funny.”

“Sure you were, lover boy.” They’re both smiling. Each of them immediately notices the others grin, noting its recent absences. Sure, winning against Banks was fun and satisfying, but it was also stressful and necessary.

“If you get scared I’ll hold your hand.” 

“I’ll hold you to that.” 

Danny ends up needing to be good to his word, but not because Rusty is scared of the sharks or something like that. Rusty ends up grabbing Danny’s hand when they get to the penguins because “Danny they’re so damn cute, look at them. Can I have one?” Danny tells him no, but he would gladly look the other way if Rusty tried. 

They all meet up two hours later, good to their word. Like these things usually go, they end up staying in. the gift shop for an hour until everyone finds what they want, Luckily they don’t have to wait in line to pay or anything.  
For some reason they all took one car to get there. 

Perhaps they didn’t want to deal with parking, none of them are completely sure. 

So here they are, all jammed into Bashers Red Suburban. Basher’s driving, and Saul called shotgun Danny, Rusty, and Reuben sit squished in the middle row, Rusty in the middle. Frank and the twins sit in the last row, and Yen, Linus, and Livingston all sit in the trunk. 

“You guys know the drill. Save showing off the shit you stole until we get back home. None of us want to miss any stupid dolphin stuffed animal toy that Turk probably stole.” 

“It’s not a dolphin. It’s a stingray and his name’s…”

“I couldn’t hear you, you’re trailing off,” supplies Virgil, always helpful.

“I named him Ray.” 

“Damn it.” 

“Linus, that’s twenty bucks, thank you kindly.” Linus hands Livingston the twenty dollars, both of them having trouble bouncing around in the back. 

“What was that about?” 

“I bet Linus twenty dollars that Turk would steal a stuffed animal and give it a name any two year old would come up with.”

“I said the name would at least be teenage level. I was wrong.” 

“No one say another word about what you stole.”

“What are we supposed to talk about then?”

Basher doesn’t respond, he just turns up the music to where none of them would be able to talk. Currently playing is Live and Let Die by Paul Mccartney and Wings. The final note fades out and the next song starts. 

It’s Taylor Swift. Everything Has Changed. No one says a word. Basher doesn’t press the skip button, and no one tells him to. None of them know who starts singing first, but suddenly they’re all singing along horribly. Not a single one of them can sing at all, not even close, but that’s never stopped anyone before. A few of them even try to harmonize, which makes the noise worse. 

Once the song is over Danny speaks up. “If anyone says a word about this outside of this group the rest of us will mess you up worse than Terry or Banks ever would.” 

Basher chimes in “I see nothing to be ashamed of. Girl knows how to write songs. Add those amazing vocals-“

“Stunning,” finishes Saul from the front. 

“If you’re done gushing over Taylor Swift, we’re here.” They pile out of the car, a few pushing and shoving to get out in time. Virgil ends up falling when he gets out, being shoved out by Frank and Turk. 

“Alright, everyone inside. Straight to the living room we we can have a show and tell.”

“Everyone take your shoes off. I’m not cleaning the carpets again, you guys have no clue how expensive that is.”  
“I call the blue armchair.”

“Where’s Linus?” They look around, noticing that Linus, Yen, and Livingston are all missing. 

“Oh my god. We-“

“We left them in the trunk.” 

“I’m going to call Linus.” Virgil grabs his phone and hits the call button, hearing Linus’ voice on the other end. 

“First he wants to let all of you know that he says fuck you. Yen also wants me to say fuck you. Livingston says to tell everyone just to come and get them.” Virgil gives the phone to Rusty, who is trying his hardest not to laugh. 

“Okay, okay. Quit being hysterical. We’re coming to get you now.” They don’t, though. They take their time, taking shoes and jackets off and getting something to drink. After they’re all settled they decide to go get them out of the trunk. 

“Someone get a camera.” 

“Got it.” Basher takes his phone out and starts videoing. As soon as they get out into the garage they can hear Yen pounding against the back door. Linus and Livingston seem to be playing the hand slapping game. It’s obvious that Livingston is losing by his bright red hands. It’s not surprising, Linus has quick hands and Livingston’s reflexes aren’t known to be the best.

They open the trunk, much to the surprise of Linus, who was leaning against the door. He falls out, doing a weird twist on the way down.

“Great, thanks for the show, Linus. Let’s go, we’ve got shit to show.” They walk as a group back inside, Linus, Livingston, and Yen taking their shoes off. 

“Who’s first?”

“I’ll go last.”

“Thanks for not answering the question, Linus.”

“Anytime, Russ.”

“I’ll go first because you all know au got a stuffed animal anyway. But what I bet you weren’t expecting is for him right wearing a cowboy hat.”

“That’s your big surprise? A cowboy hat?” Virgil steals Ray out of Turks hands and tossed it to Rusty, who starts the rest of them tossing it around until it got back to Turk.

Basher speaks up, “I’ll go next. I got this scarf that I’m going to use in that new dress I’m working on, and if one of you stole it I have the right to take whatever I want from your wardrobe and pull it off better than you do. I also got this keychain because I think I can turn it into something useful.”

Rusty’s next. “My turn. Because someone here won’t let me steal a penguin I took this pair of coveralls that belong to one of the penguin keepers or whatever the fuck they’re called. I also have this key to the penguin exhibit so I can visit them whenever I want. And I’m choosing Danny to go next.”

“Fine. I got this plaque in front of the sharks that says do not tap the glass. No reason behind it.” 

The rest of them go around, all telling what they stole. Virgil got a handful of rocks from most of the exhibits, much to the joy of Linus the resident rock lover. 

Frank stole a bunch of name tags to use in the future and some wires from a control panel of some sort, and he gives no explanation of why. 

Livingston took a few special lizard lights for his pet, Tiny MyNewt, as well as a tiny stuffed lizard to keep Tiny company. Yen just stole a shit ton of cash from the register along with a mood ring. 

Reuben got a piece of art from the bathroom and some lotion from the manager's bathroom. Saul stole a bunch of candy bars and gun from the break room and an underwater lego set, which Turk immediately tried to trade for. 

“Okay, it’s my turn.” Linus reaches into his backpack and pulls out a small clear container with a blue lid. Inside is a small hermit crab with a brown colored shell. “Meet Rusty.” 

“I’m Rusty. He can’t be Rusty. I’m Rusty.” 

“Don’t me so flattered. His name is Rusty because he’s rust-colored. His full name is Rusty Vegas Caldwell.” 

“Why does he get your last name?”

“Because he’s mine.”

“And you said not to get sentimental. You named him Vegas.”

“Linus, your a sentimental piece of shit, I love you.” 

“That’s just because I named a crab after you.”

“Shh.”


End file.
